Cologne-ish Christmas Wishes

I am packing for my Christmas trip home. I am planning for that. I am helping Kata plan and pack for her trip to Budapest.

In times like these, when I am thinking about home in Canada, and home I just left in Budapest, I think about how I got here. Yeah, I came here for the job, but there are jobs in Canada too. But there are other reasons. For one thing, I'm seeing the world I live in.

In Cologne we saw a little more of that when we visited the cathedral. It’s an impressive man-made mountain of stone and stained glass in the middle of a city.  To say it’s stunning is an understatement. 

Before I get on my flight for a Canadian Christmas, I wanted to drop in a few photos in what will likely be my last post of 2015. They won't do the cathedral justice, but I hope they give you a bit of an idea.

Merry Christmas, everyone. See you in 2015.

Bicycle dudes in square between the train station and the Dom.

The Dom looks good during the day...

...And looks good at night.

We managed to snap a couple of spooky, gothic shots before we went home.

The Sad Quest for Internet in Germany

A household with no internet is a household cut off from the world. Governments used to provide radios to households, so if there was a disaster or, if you're in Eastern Europe, the Russians were invading, they could let everyone know.

That's not always the case with the internet.

Living in Europe, a continent that has been marching towards integration for decades, you might delude yourself into the notion that internet in Hungary is similar to internet in Germany. Well, nothing could be farther from the truth.

Internet In Hungary

In Budapest, I went to the UPC internet store and gave them my address with some money. A few days later a man came to my flat, installed the internet, made sure it worked, and then left. I had amazing internet speeds for 20€ a month.

Internet in Germany

In Dusseldorf, I went to the store and gave the man my address, with some money. I was told it would take two weeks and another man would call to arrange an appointment to either bring the modem and install it or just drop off the router. It costs 35€ a month.

Two weeks later, no phone call, no appointment, no internet. Also, no customer service, just a machine that eats up your pre-paid minutes as you wait for an operator to pick up who never picks up.

Kata, who I now dub the Internet Whisperer, steps in. She goes back to the shop for answer and also waits on the phone line to find out there is no mechanic man visiting. They did, however mail the modem, but it didn’t make it for some reason.

They mail the modem again. It doesn’t make it into our mailbox, but it does arrive at the art gallery downstairs.

We pick in the modem and unleash the internet! 

It turns out the modem is not so good for providing internet, but it’s great for giving off excessive heat. So much so that we shut it off occasionally to cool it down. The internet is also weak, just a bar or two, at least it's a good space heater – the Russian could shut off the gas at any time, after all.

The Internet Whisperer calls Unitymedia again – a month after I optimistically walked into the Unitymedia store that very first time – and arranges for a mechanic to visit. I’m told the mechanic will visit the flat some time between 8:30am and 4pm. Guess who’s working from home all day.

The mechanic arrives, changes a couple of wires and splitters in the basement and in the flat and then in the basement again. Now we have three bars of internet in Germany, the economic heart of Europe.

Ideas that never became blog posts

When it comes to writing posts for this blog, I am ruthless. About half the posts I write never get past the draft phase. The posts die for many reasons. They wander off, without a point or theme – which is important for me – or I didn't like how they turn out and shelf them indefinitely. 

Whether the death is slow or quick, there's usually a kernel of an idea that brought about the draft phase in the first place. That idea that drove the dead posts often remain in my head, waiting to come out.

Here are a few ideas that did not die with their post, but still wait to come out.

Politics

During my stay in Hungary, an EU commission accused the Hungarian government of eroding its democratic institutions, there was a national election, and the prime minister called for an “illiberal state” based on Russia or Turkey. Lots of juicy stuff to write about.

Hungary never had genuine democratic institutions until the 1990s. Before that it was dictators, kings, and emperors. It takes time for democracy to take root and grow. Right now, this government is pursuing a nationalist agenda in spite of the economic and political consequences. It is not tragic. It is a part of a process every country goes through as they build a civil society. The real tragedy would be the day the Hungarian people quit seeking and defending their own democratic institutions. Happily that isn't happening.

There is a lot to say and, as a non-Hungarian speaker, I always felt I was never get the full story. As a guy with a political science degree, it always stuck in my craw that I couldn’t clearly elucidate even one political post about Hungary. Maybe some distance will help in the coming months.

No normal jeans

I only had a few weeks to wrap up the loose ends of my life in Toronto before I set off for Budapest. Buying new blue jeans did not make the list at the time, but if I could do things over again I would have brought a couple of pairs.

This isn’t the Cold War. Blue jeans are as common in the old East Bloc as they are in the West. All the jeans here happen to be very tight. I looked in several malls for a decent pair. These weren’t baggy pants with 30-inch openings I was looking for, just jeans that are a little looser in the legs, crouch, and ass. Not a big deal, or you would think.

The search got so desperate that I even asked a friend from Canada who was coming to visit to get a pair for me. He got hit by a car on the shopping trip, so I got no jeans and he got a trip to the ER (he’s fine... now).

My search eventually ended at a skate store in a Budapest, where I bought the baggiest pair I could find. How baggy were they? My sister laughed at them when she was visiting, saying I looked weird in skinny jeans.

Fröccs

A while back, I wrote about Hungary as an incredible wine country and my utter lack of any wine knowledge. After spending two summers visiting the beaches, bars, and patios of Budapest and Lake Balaton, I have a new wrinkle to add to that.

It’s fröccs, the ultimate spending-a-day-drinking-on-a-patio drink. Fröccs is wine and carbonated water. Admittedly, I’m no wine snob, so I won't gasp at mixing water with wine. I’ve also mixed carbonated water with whiskey for years -- Whiskey Pop! These sorts of drinks are bubbly and tasty, but also keep you hydrated enough to avoid the brutal hangovers that are the norm when you’re over 30.

The trick is ordering a fröccs with the desired wine to water ratio. This way, you stay hydrated as you drink away the afternoon, evening, night, and possibly morning.

Marshall's Lazy Guide to Froccs.

Settling into the Dorf

That dull view at the office.

Getting a German work permit isn’t so hard if you put in your time. Time spent lumbering through government offices. Time spent getting forms stamped, then signing here and here.  Of course, putting in your time waiting to do all of that signing and stamping.

While I was waiting to get some forms stamped or signed or whatever, I mentioned to the HR person with me that I had been affectionately calling my new city the Dorf among friends. She looked shocked. You can’t call it that, she said. Dorf means village, you see, and other Dusseldorfers, being very proud and posh people, would not appreciate having their city called a village.

So, here I am in a land with little sense of irony. That will be one of the biggest things I will have to adjust to, and watch out for.

Moving to Budapest was an adjustment, but it was not too hard for me in some ways. I liked the food, I found the people nice, and it was a beautiful city. I worked hard at the language and got to a level where I could function the basic day-to-day tasks. I went to punk rock shows, hiked in the hills, and drank fröccs on the patios.

Moving to Dusseldorf has been like hitting the reset button. Once again I am confronted with a befuddling language – I never thought I’d wish for the familiarity of Hungarian. That will likely be the first and only time you read that from a foreigner. It’s a different culture, both in the ad agency and out in the real world.

The upside is that Dusseldorf is pretty, and there's an old town that is essentially filled with bars and pubs and beer halls. It’s also a little cloudier here and a little colder, but the welcome from the people here has been warm.

Then there’s the job. I don’t talk much shop here, but I’ll take a moment to get into it because I came to the Dorf for a job. I will be working on a global account again, like the gig in Budapest, so it is a great professional opportunity. I’m three weeks in and I know it will have its fair share of challenges, but I am excited about it.

While I’m still missing my Canadian people and my new friends in the East, being in the Dorf opens up a whole lot of adventures in strange places. I can’t help but be a little excited about that.

A bit of sun brings the Dorfers flocking to the Rhine. 

The might Rhine!

The Stademuseum's backyard pond.

Un-blog-able Berlin

After visiting Berlin something like six times I can honestly say that Berlin is a giant mess of a city.

No? Let’s journey back into history, as this blog is wont to do.

Berlin – on the swampy banks of the Spree – suddenly became a capital of an empire and hastily went about building itself up to suit the name. Then the war happened. Since then it’s been starved, had its streets taken over by revolutionaries and reactionaries, became a decadent party city, then a National Socialist party city, got smashed into ruins, surrounded by communist terriory, had a wall slammed through the middle of it, then got jolted into the rest of the world.

Since the beginning, Berlin has been an exercise in urban improvisation. It simply had to adapt with the circumstances that have swamped it over time. Today, there’s a civic spirit of improvisation in the city. Just look at all those famous clubs in old factories and bunkers.

The easiest blog would have been to chronicle the many trips there, and the Discovery Walks that Kata and I have taken. I don’t like writing those sorts of travelogues. I was always looking for a theme to write about after every visit. In my view, this beautiful mess of city in the East has been unblogable. Then I realized we’ve been improvising our trips as well.

The program for any weekend visit was pretty loose. We‘d have a desire to visit an exhibition or go to a particular park. Mostly we just bought a beer at a kiosk and walked about. We’d stroll down side streets. There are plenty of corner bistros on the corners of those side streets for a quick lunch. We never had a bad meal doing that. There were always plenty of kiosks for a second roady beer.

We made plans as we went. During the spring and summer, we found shady spots in the parks, having lunch and sipping beer among the hipsters. All the while, we kept walking. Through flea markets in Prenzlauer, through grotty warehouse bars in Friedrichstain, a gallery in Charlottenburg, and along the Landwehr Canal (easily our favourite Berlin landmark).

This is the Berlin I know and grew to enjoy.

Berlin’s messy beauty wants you to throw away the itinerary and walk about. Rent a bike. Use your two feet. Ride on a double-decker bus. If you see a bar that looks cool, chances are it is cool. Take a chance on that restaurant on the corner.

Go to Berlin. Ditch the plan. Get lost in the mess.

The quiet, nearly derelict Zionskirche, near Bernauer Strasse.

East Side Gallery

More East Side Gallery.

The dark and shiny, beside the gray and grotty.

The frogs of Volkspark Weinberg.

Stuff happened here before WWII.
Remember Napoleon? This is a monument to his defeat.

Viktoria Falls.

Mitte.

I saw this many times on the ride into Berlin from Adlershof.

Uhhh... Somwhere in Berlin.

Mysterious obelisk in Charlottenburg.

Self explanatory, hopefully.

Moving to a new strange place

I almost didn’t come out to Budapest. It took the sage advice of two buddies to convince me to come out. Six months, I figured, I’ll see how it goes.

Twenty-two months later I am leaving Budapest with a mix of feelings. I’m excited about the next adventure in a strange place. I’m sad to leave an incredible city where I’ve made great friends.

Thankfully the sadness is softened by the fact that I’m only going to Germany. I will come back, which is good because I don't like goodbyes and I really enjoyed discovering this city.

Coming here was indeed the right decision. 

See you all again soon!

Marshall's Guide to Hungarian Cooking

Photo by  Katalin Varga

I recently tried cooking goulash. It wasn’t a failure, but I wouldn’t say it was a resounding success either. It was decent, edible... and we’ll leave it at that.

The edible goulash is my most recent foray into Hungarian cuisine. Scrambled eggs with onions and paprika was my first, and easiest, move – though it took a few attempts to get it right (fry the onions first, sprinkle in the paprika, wait a minute, add the eggs). I’ve made pörkölt – a paprika flavoured meat stew – with some success and no complaints (although I was the only one eating it).

Lately, my best dish has been the lécso. This is paprika-flavoured stew (yeah, I put paprika in almost everything) of onions, peppers, and tomatoes with meat or sausage, or meat and sausage, or meat, sausage, and eggs. 

All I knew about Hungarian cuisine when I arrived was goulash, but I’ve gotten good at making lécso. It’s cheap and healthy and you can put in as much meat as you want, because a meal ain’t a meal in Hungary unless there's meat and onions.

I’m a lazy cook too. I’m not good at fussing over ingredients or worrying about spices and all that junk. I just want to throw my stuff into a pot with a bunch of paprika and eat it. If I get leftovers for a few lunches, even better.

Lécso suits my laziness. it’s a breeze to make and what can go wrong with a food that includes a lot of onions and paprika? Start with the lécso and see how Magyar you get in the kitchen.

All you need is:

Fatty bacon (You can use oil, but you lose out on the Hungarian-ness)

A bunch of tomatoes

A bunch of large onion 

Two bunches of big red or green

A chili pepper

Smoked paprika (the spice)

Sausage (Hungarians use a sort of Frankfurter, I like spicy sausage. But really, almost any meat is fine.)

Cook the bacon until the fat is melted and add your onions. Cook those until they’re soft-ish and add two teaspoons of the smoked paprika. Cook for a little bit longer, then add the peppers. Drink some wine, let the peppers soften, add the sausage. Let those cook a bit then add the tomatoes and one more teaspoon of paprika. Put the lid on and let it all stew. If you're feeling adventurous, whisk a few eggs and stir them into the stew. Serve with a slab of bread (I like the dark rye) and have some more wine.

Windsprints on the Danube and into the Hills

Buda Hills

I moved from apartment to apartment often in Toronto, which meant there were always new neighbourhoods to discover. Running was the best way to get to know a new hood. Going out for a half hour meant you could run along the streets, explore little side alleys, and hidden corners of the area. When I was living in Cracktown I also discovered the sketchy courtyards of Regent’s Park – a great place to work on my windsprints.

I brought this habit to Budapest. Running along the Danube and seeing the sights, ducking into side streets in Pest or Buda. There is plenty to see. Looking for a challenge, I even tried running up Gellert Hill – a brutal, heart-hammering run with a view of the city at the end.

Being an impatient runner, I like to finish my runs in less than 45 minutes, so no races or half marathons or anything like that. I run, I see stuff, and I eat right away afterwards. But I couldn’t pass an invitation from two colleagues to join a trail running group. The group meets up in the hills and run 10km every Tuesday. I wasn’t even sure if I had ran that far before, but I joined.

I showed up in my usual running gear, which isn’t running gear: a black Cephalic Carnage hoodie and a pair of cross trainers. The rest of the runners wore sturdy trail running shoes. I was handed my headlamp and off we went.

I was hooked. My heavy metal hoodie became a common sight on the trails, showing up every couple of weeks (I was alternating between squash and trail running). It turned out my near-suicidal runs up Gellert prepared me for the rugged Buda Hills.

It’s just nice and pretty up there. You’re not dodging traffic, or Regent Park gangsters. You’re running through the trees breathing fresh air and seeing incredible views of the city. I kept up the trail running until neck problems (from other things) put me out of commission.

The running group with
the clueless metal hoodie-wearing foreigner in the middle.

Trail Running to Trail Walking

The first time I took to the hills for something other than a death-defying run was a picnic with Kata. We packed our food, packed our wine, even packed glasses, but didn’t bother checking the weather. When we reached our desired picnic spot, the storm clouds rolled in and the lightning flashed before we could set up.

Seeking shelter, we rode the Children’s Railway until the rain cleared up and got off at the end of the line. With the ground too soggy for picnicking we settled on a bench at a corner of a small intersection. We ate our soggy crackers and cheese, and drank our wine as cars and dogwalkers awkwardly passed us.

For those less inclined to running or walking up sharp inclines, Budapest’s transit authority runs a few unconventional modes of transportation up into the hills. Along with the Children’s Railway, there’s a chair lift. Mountain bikers without the vigor for the climb up can be seen ascending on the cog train. The transportation options defy conventionality, which is so common you might as well consider it conventional.

Running, walking, or getting stuck in a rainstorm, I have returned to the hills over and over again. Kata and I have hiked the trails and I’ve enjoyed a few BBQs at Normafa with fellow Canadian and head chef, Joe. 

It’s rare that in a major city, you can head for the hills in the early afternoon and be back in time for dinner and drinks in the evening. What’s rarer still is that in Budapest all of this wild nature is only a tram ride away. It’s a nature-loving quality that’s unique to Budapest and something I did not expect.

Chairlift yourself.

Another BBQ at Normafa.

Gellert Hill, the site of many humbling, stumbling runs.

Budapest’s Beautiful Perplexities

Budapest has an easy claim to being one of the most beautiful cities in Europe. But, for a Canadian boy like myself, its beauty is tempered with the little peculiarities that come with leaving in a faraway land.

Bread with f***ing stickers

The biggest that leaps to my mind is sticker on the bread. Yes, it tells you the date it was made, but it’s a sticker on my freakin’ bread.

Ugh, bread stickers.

Bus Drivers driving with two feet

When I discovered a quicker bus route to the office from my home, I quickly made it a daily habit. Unlike the subway, I can look out the window. The caveat? Almost every bus driver in Budapest drives with both feet. The bus jerks to a sudden stop at every streetlight. If you’re not holding on you end up bumping into fellow passengers who are more accustomed to the herky-jerky nuances of the Budapest bus ride.

ROADY BEERS!!!

For the most part, Budapest has no open container laws, meaning that you can have a beer in the park with friends or take a roady beer for a walk. This isn’t exclusively Hungarian, but it is nice to live in a place where people are trusted to be responsible with their alcohol consumption.

No dryers. Small fridges.

Electricity is more expensive here. So, people have adjusted accordingly. You get used to a small fridge that North Americans would scoff at and label a beer fridge. You end up buying only the groceries that you need. Dryers are few and fair between, meaning I’ve had to learn to iron. Ironing sucks.

People selling belts, iPhones, and onions

The first time I stepped into Szell Kalman I was kind of overwhelmed by the peddlers and their wares. I haven't made a purchase, but I know where to go for a belt or a set of ceramic knives in a pinch.

My first time in Szell Kalman ter

Hungary: One Nation Under Water

Let’s say you have a people living in a landlocked nation. Not only is there no sea, but this country is surrounded by beautiful mountains.  These people’s ancestors happened to arrive and conquer this land on horseback.

And somehow these people also have developed an incredible love of water. It doesn’t make much sense, but that’s Hungary for you – a nation of water babies

In lieu of any coastline Hungary has hundreds of thermal springs, which have spas and bathhouse built over them. Mentioning the spa to a North American immediately conjures an image of a fancy-pantsy retreat in the country where moneyed folks enjoy their mud baths and massages. In Budapest, the baths are for everyone, from the working man right on up to royalty.

Did I mention they are in the city limits? Nowhere else in the world do you have not just one, but several baths within a city. There’s something for everyone. For the mud bath enthusiasts, you have the fancy pants Gellert Spa (I don’t know about mud bath availability though). You’re already familiar with the old Turkish baths in Rudas if you’ve seen the opening fight scene of the Schwarzenegger classic Red Heat. It was filmed there.

Look past the man pecks, and you see Rudas.

No man pecks here.

My first encounter with the baths was with a group of Hungarian friends at the Baroque outdoor wonder that is Szechenyi in the morning of New Year’s Eve.

It’s a tradition. You arrive in the morning, spend the day loosening up and use that relaxation to take a long nap before the parties begin. The fog was so thick that morning that you felt like you were all alone in an outdoor thermal pool filled with several hundred people. You could hear the fountain splashing and gurgling in the middle of the pool, but you didn’t know it was there until you walked right into its spray.

Kata and I try to get to Szechenyi every time she's in Budapest. In our opinion, it's the best bath in the city.

Hungary also has a large shallow summer-getaway lake. About a two-hour drive from Budapest, this lake is sort of like Canada’s Muskokas, if the Muskokas weren’t pockmarked with eyesore mansions and the calm wasn’t interrupted by jetskiers going back and forth.

On Balaton, motor traffic is limited to the ferries, allowing people to actually swim in the lake or take sailboats out. And the mansions? The communists turned them into hostels for vacationing state company workers (some of which are still used for that purpose).

The lake is shallow, no deeper than three or four meters, but it’s large enough that there are plenty of places to visit along its shore, each with its own character.

Last month for my birthday Kata and I went to Badascony, a hill formed by volcanic fissures. This left basalt columns on the hill and rich, volcanic soil below it for amazing wine growing. We spent an afternoon hiking up the hill. Exiting the park we came out onto a road lined with wine cellars and drank as we returned to our hotel to suit up and go for a swim in the lake.

The summer before, friends and I made it out to Siofok, which is Balaton’s beach resort town. It has a sandy beach and a lot of muscled dudes and bikini-clad ladies ambling along, trying to be seen.

Across the lake, Tihany is different still. It’s a hilled peninsula jutting into the Lake, almost cutting it in half. The hiking is ok, the view is incredible, and there are quiet, private beaches to be enjoyed – if you can sneak onto one.

Feet up in Siofok. Photo by Torma.

Hiking in Badacsony.

Our forbidden beach. Photo by Kata.

Somehow, this lake, the land’s springs, and this water baby love culminated into a fierce water sports competitive spirit. Hungary, per capita, has a dizzying amount of Olympians – many are divers, swimmers, and, most popularly, water polo players.

There’s a lot of history in water polo here, and I will not get into it here. For those unfamiliar with the sport, it does not involve riding horses in the water. Think of it as rugby in the water. It’s brutally violent, incredibly exhausting, but very entertaining for the rest of us watching.

In Hungary, water polo players are treated like hockey players in Canada. They are revered national heroes, endorsing all sorts of products and marrying women who Canadians would recognize as puck bunnies. The similarities are eerie, sometimes.

A Hungarian telcom set up a water polo pool with big screens in
a Budapest public square for Euro Water Polo Tournament

Needless to say, water polo is a big deal in Hungary. I caught the water polo bug during the recent European Championships, which were held here. I wasn’t at the point where I was running down the street with a Hungarian flag as a cape, but I was getting home to watch the games on TV. I was jubilant with every win for Hungary, and I was crushed when they were trounced in the finals by Serbia. Admittedly, it might not just be water polo I was enjoying; I could be turning into a Hungarian nationalist too.

How a landlocked country is filled with bath-going, water polo-loving people is still beyond me. Hungary can seem like a nation of peculiarities, and this is just of one of them – and it’s a fun one, if you ask me. So I’m just going with it.